Jenny Brown: In sickness and in health
by The unknown sister
Summary: Jenny Brown thinks that life can only throw bad things at her. That is until she books a last minute trip to the States and her world changes completely. Starts before Iron Man, will finish in the future. AU for reasons. Please rate and review :)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Jenny Brown's best friend Jennifer describes Jenny as being the unluckiest person she has ever met. The 2 Scottish girls met at the tender age of 3 in 1989, united by their common first names. Jenny had taken to calling herself Jenny as few people could cope with 2 girls, both with brown hair, both best friends, being called Jennifer.

Jennifer had noticed that there was something different about Jenny fairly early on. She would wear special shoes to school, not pretty ones like the other girls would wear, but big ankle boots that looked quite uncomfortable. She had also noticed that Jenny walked funny, favouring her left leg over her right. At the age of 8 Jenny sat out of P.E. class for the first time, they were doing gymnastics. It was in that class that Jennifer learned to perfect her cart wheel. By the time she was 10 she was coming last in every race she tried to run, Jennifer was coming first. When they got to high school at 12 she had stopped running completely, Jennifer joined the athletics team. As they grew together, Jenny continued to deteriorate whist Jennifer grew stronger and healthier – just like any other normal growing teenager.

The families of the 2 girls were also markedly different. Jennifer had a huge family, 2 sisters and a brother, all 4 grandparents alive, multiple aunts and uncles on both sides and cousins coming out of her ears. When they met, Jenny had 3 people she would call family, both of her parents and her Grandma, her only surviving grandparent. Both of her parents were only children.

Her parents were both heavily involved in enormous companies. Her father worked for Stark Industries, he was involved in International sales, particularly sales in the UK. His job required him to travel all over the globe. In 2001, when Jenny was 14, he was spending a few months in the States, doing business deals for Stark Industries' east coast base. He had a meeting at the main Stark headquarters in Los Angeles on the 15th of September, his flight leaving on the 11th from Boston.

He never came home.

Her mum worked for a company that made surgical instruments for hospitals. She was required to travel up and down the country trying to convince hospitals to use their equipment. She was also required to attend many meetings at head office in London. One of these meeting was due to take place on the afternoon of the 7th July 2005. Her mum was getting there via the London Underground, she just happened to be sitting next to a man with a back pack.

She never came home either. Jenny was 18.

After that, she had been required to stay at her Grandma's when she wasn't at University, but the stress of the past few years had been taking its toll on Jenny's only surviving relative. She died of a heart attack in the spring of 2006. It was Jennifer's family that stepped up to the plate, taking her in, giving her a place to stay when she needed it.

By the autumn of 2007, Jenny was at breaking point. She was 21 and now almost completely reliant on a walking stick in order to get around. Her ankles, particularly her right ankle was now so weak that it would sprain at the smallest amount of over exertion. She would get maybe a week or 2, possibly 3 where she would be able to walk independently, but then she would over-do it, re sprain her ankle and be back to the stick. She was living every day one day at a time. She would get up, go to class, eat if she remembered, do course work then go to bed. Repeat. Jenny felt that her mind was starting to numb itself from the pain, both physical and mental. She would push herself every day to try and do normal things, because that's what she thought her parents would want.

But she wasn't coping.

She didn't know how much longer she was going to be able to carry on like this, but she did know that she wanted to see the world a bit more before she left it. So without telling Jennifer, she booked one last epic holiday to the States. She would be spending Christmas in New York before heading out to Los Angeles for New Year, a bloody good way to spend her inheritance money. One last hoorah before her body and mind shut down completely.

She touched down in Newark airport on the 21st December 2007 and slowly hobbled her way to the arrivals lounge. After eventually finding somewhere to sit and taking a couple of pain killers to numb the ache in her ankle, she switched her phone back on and noticed that she had 27 missed calls – all of them from Jennifer.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jennifer picked up on the second ring.

"Jenny?"

"Jen-"

"Is that you?"

"Jen-"

"Where are you?

"Jen-"

"Where the hell have you been?!"

"JENNIFER! I'm in New York."

"What do you mean you're 'in New York'?"

"I mean that I got on a plane and flew across the Atlantic and now I'm in America."

"Oh my god whatever. Just stay in touch so I know you're OK."

Jennifer hung up the phone, Jenny was of the opinion that the phone call could have gone a little bit better.

She made it outside to the taxi rank with the first driver getting out of his car to help her when he saw the walking stick. Jenny had booked herself quite a nice hotel in Manhattan and basically planned to visit as many sites as she possibly could over the next few days; relying heavily on taxi's. Thank god for inheritance money…

Jenny was in the last year of doing a biology degree so this, by default, made her a massive science nerd. It was only natural then that the first place she went to was the natural history museum which was, in Jenny's opinion, quite possibly the best museum she had ever been to. The following day was a much quieter affair, with Jenny resting up in Central Park taking in the scenery and all the Christmas wonder. She spent the entirety of Christmas day in her hotel room, ordering far too much room service and watching every movie that was on TV. On Boxing Day she went to visit Bryant Park, not to go ice skating of course, that wouldn't end well, but more just to take in the Christmas atmosphere. Naturally, Jenny was a big fan of doing anything that involved sitting, so on her final day in New York she took a bus tour.

On reflection, going to LA for New Year was a bit of a weird thing to do, but Jenny was very welcoming of the higher temperatures the city had to offer. Her plan for this stage of the holiday was a much simpler affair mostly consisting of R & R with multiple sittings on multiple beaches. This doesn't include the trip to Disney land that she had booked for the 29th, all of this possible because she could rent a wheelchair. Even with the best will in the world Jenny was pretty sure that she would never manage to walk round the park by herself. Jenny's New Year was a quiet one, she had a perfect view of the fireworks from her window; she saw this as a valid reason to not leave her room. New Year's Day was for her was a repeat of Christmas day, lots of movies and lots of food.

A few days into 2008 she set out for Malibu, by taxi of course. There were many beaches that needed to be sat on there. She'd set out for them quite early in the morning, so early that it was still dark in fact – she wanted to watch the sunrise. She had the taxi driver drop her off a few streets short of her destination. All the rest had allowed her ankle to get slightly better so she wanted to walk a little. It's a shame that she never saw the car heading towards her as she started to cross the road…

Jenny was aware that something wasn't quite right. There was a pain coming from somewhere. Was it her head? Yeah, yeah it seemed to be coming from her head. There was something else. What was it? She was on the ground. Yeah, her head was sore and she was on the ground. There was another thing. She was sure there was another thing. Someone was trying to talk to her. A man. A man was trying to talk to her. Her head was hurting, she was on the ground and a man was trying to talk to her.

"Oh my god! Kid? Are you OK? Please say something. Please don't be dead. Wait. Is that a walking stick? Oh my god I hit a disabled person. Oh my god I'm a terrible human being."

"Owwwww"

"Thank god you're alive!"

"Uh what happened?"

"I think I hit you with my car. But you're OK so that's good. Wait, are you Scottish?"

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"You don't know? Well I guess it is dark…I'm Tony Stark CEO of Stark Industries"

"Oh OK"

"Look I'm gonna take you back to my place. I've got a bodyguard who knows first aid and the best first aid kit you've ever seen. We can get that thing on your head checked out and then you can rest up. I think you have a concussion."

Tony was fully aware of the potential PR crisis that this could cause. Hitting a kid, a disabled kid whist being ever so slightly drunk and speeding would be the end of him. Even on the side of the street he was getting images of him in a jail cell with a 200 pound gay man creeping up behind him. No, this had to be dealt with quietly.

He helped Jenny up off the ground, trying to ignore the small whimper that escaped from her mouth and put her in his car. As an afterthought, he remembered to pick up the remaining pieces of her walking stick. Tony desperately hoped that Happy and Pepper, particularly Pepper, wouldn't kill him as he drove back to his Malibu beach house.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Jenny was pretty sure she'd been told as a child not to get into the cars of strangers, but this guy had offered her the best first aid kid in the world and she had a really sore head.

Tony was pretty sure that driving off with a strange kid probably alluded to kidnapping, but she was a lawsuit waiting to happen and he knew it. He needed to check how bad her concussion was. Currently, in the front seat of his car, she was clutching her head and slumping slightly.

"Hey kid, do you remember your name?"

It took Jenny a few seconds to respond, Tony was really starting to get worried now. But soon enough, she sat back up and looked at him.

"Uh yeah, I'm Jenny"

"Good, good. You remember your name. That's a good sign. Do you know what day it is?"

"Uh no."

"Ok. That's less good. Look we're nearly there and you're gonna get fixed up really good. OK?"

Somewhere in her concussion filled head, Jenny could vaguely remember that her Dad used to work for Tony Stark. Did that still make him a stranger? Was that the reason he was helping her? Did he remember her? No. That wasn't possible. Jenny had never met Mr Stark before.

As they pulled into the garage, Tony realised that he'd probably have to hack into the local security cameras and delete the footage of him hitting the kid. What would be a worse situation – the kid suing him, or him keeping it quiet and someone else finding the security footage? Tony was gonna delete the footage.

He put her right arm around his neck as he helped her get out of the car, she was never going to manage by herself without the stick he'd broken.

"JARVIS? Can you get Happy over here ASAP? Tell him there's been an accident and 911 CAN'T be called. Make it clear he doesn't call 911."

"Certainly, Sir. May I ask who the young lady is?"

"Shut it, JARVIS" Tony was regretting turning up JARVIS's sass factor up by a million.

Tony knew it would take Happy only 5 minutes to get there. Even though it was 7am, Happy was always ready to be of assistance to his boss. In the meantime Tony was struggling to get himself and the kid up to the lounge.

Happy arrived in 4 minutes 23 seconds, a personal record.

"Boss? Is everything OK? I got this call from JARVIS and- wait, who's she?" Happy had gone from looking concerned to confused very quickly. "Is she bleeding?"

"Yeah, I hit her with my car and I think she's got a concussion."

"Jesus, Boss. I'll get the first aid kid."

Jenny heard the happy man leave to find the first aid kit. He didn't seem very happy to her, he sounded confused – like she was. But soon enough he was back in front of her shining a bright light in her eyes. She didn't like the bright light, so she looked away over to Tony who was pouring himself a drink.

"Don't you think you've had enough of that?" the happy man said. Tony put the drink down.

The happy man proceeded to get Mr Stark to hold something cold to her head whist he sealed the wound on her head with medical glue. Jenny tried not to laugh as the happy man wiped off the blood on her face, it was tickly.

"What are you gonna do about Pepper, Boss?"

Shit. He'd forgotten about Pepper. She was due to start work at 7.30 and it was currently? He checked his watch. 7.29. Oh Shit.

"Tony? Oh my god! What's going on?"

Too late.

"Pepper. It's not as bad as a looks" He walked over to her with his hands raised, body language for 'don't kill me'.

"NOT AS BAD AS IT LOOKS!? Tony, there is a girl on your couch with blood all over her clothes. It looks bad!"

Tony looked back over to Jenny, it did look bad. "Pep, it's a long story and I'll explain it later but right now we need to get her into a spare room so she can sleep off her concussion."

Pepper stormed off, muttering about how most people don't have to deal with stuff like this at work.

It didn't take too long for Jenny's brain to catch up with her as she woke up. She remembered being hit by a car, being driven by Tony Stark of all people and having her stick broken. She groaned in annoyance – that thing had cost her 20 quid. She remembered the man who was called Happy and the woman, Pepper. She looked around, realising they must have put her to bed. As she looked down she noticed that her clothes had been changed. She seemed to be wearing a plain white t-shirt and some pyjama shorts. How did they have clothes here that fitted her? They'd also provided her with a wheelchair. That was a nice touch.

As she rolled herself out of the room she couldn't see anyone about. The clock on the wall said that it was 2pm, had she really been out for 5 hours? Pepper was in the living room as the rounded the corner.

"Um, thanks for the clothes and the chair by the way."

"Hey." Pepper smiled warmly. "I'm glad to see you up. How are you feeling?"

"Well, I feel like I've been hit by a car, but other than that I'm fine!"

Pepper gave a small chuckle and got up to make her something to eat all the while explaining that she was absolutely furious at Tony for doing something so stupid and reckless. Speaking of which, Tony was nowhere to be seen. Jenny didn't ask about him, frankly she still couldn't quite believe that she was in his house at all. She wouldn't have been surprised if she'd woken up to find that all of this had been a dream. After she'd eaten (she hadn't realised how hungry she was), Pepper took down the details of the hotel she was staying at. Apparently she was going to be spending the rest of her holiday right here – in Stark's mansion – for real.

The first thing Jenny did when she got her phone back was call Jennifer who proceeded to scream at her for getting hurt - so loud that she had to hold the phone away from her ear. Jennifer was demanding pics of the man himself. Jenny wasn't sure if she'd be able to sneak pics of Tony Stark without him knowing…

He didn't show up for dinner that night either, leaving Jenny to eat the takeout pizza that he'd ordered by herself. She wasn't too fussed by this, Pepper had given her the password to order films off the TV so she wasn't going to get bored. But she wanted to thank him for looking after her.

He didn't show until after breakfast the next morning.

"It's Talipes you have isn't it?"

What? Well yeah, it is, but how did he know and what did this have to do with anything?

"Yeah it is? How'd you know?"

"And it's a pretty severe type isn't it?" he said, not answering her question.

"Yeah, I've needed lots of operations."

"Are you up for another one? Or two?"

What?

"You see, I've got this friend, more of a colleague really who's all into experimental orthopaedic surgery and he's been helping me design replaceable joints that are currently unreplaceable and I think you might be a good test subject. I've talked to him and he seems pretty up for it too. He's coming over this afternoon to take measurements for the prosthetics."

Jenny was speechless. She had known this man for, collectively speaking, only a few hours but he was offering to do surgery?

Her silence was noted.

"Look, can you at least think about it? It'll change your life completely!"

On the other side of the country:

"Sir, we've had intel that suggests Tony Stark is wanting to perform illegal experimental surgery on a Scottish 21 year old woman. Something to do with Titanium prosthetic ankles. How should we proceed?"

"That motherfucker." He sighed. "We'll monitor the situation for now, but we need to make sure that he isn't potentially arming a psychopath. I need you to go down there."

"Yes, sir"


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jenny was actually quite impressed with the surgeon when he turned up, especially when she realised that her definition of thorough was way different to his definition, which seemed to be a whole new league of thorough. As well as taking measurements he got casts and x-rays too and then sent her off for an MRI scan. Although Jenny became quite concerned when he described that these were no ordinary prosthetics.

 _Earlier that afternoon:_

"What do you mean 'they're not conventional'?" Jenny was getting concerned now. Yeah this was free surgery but she didn't want to make her situation worse.

"Well, in normal amputation you cut everything off. Here, we will only be removing what's underneath the skin; bone, muscle, blood vessels, nerves – you get the jist. The prosthesis attaches to the bone and fuses with it as the bone heals over the following six weeks."

"How on earth does that work?" Jenny's curiosity was beginning to spike.

"Well the science is a little complex but basically the top part of the prosthesis is made of a titanium mesh that has 4 parts – the outer parts sit on the outside of the tibia and fibula, the inside parts go into the bone marrow of both bones. The mesh then eventually gets incorporated into them." He looked pretty pleased with himself after his little explanation. Jenny could all but imagine the many hours of work he and Tony had put in to making something like this.

"The benefits of a procedure like this are pretty cool, kid." Tony had decided to join them from his lab. "Not only will the new feet kinda resemble the old feet given that they're going inside the skin of your old ones but they're going to be seriously strong too – I'd avoid kicking people in the nuts, you'd probably make them infertile."

The surgeon re-entered the conversation. "Yes, yes I should probably worn you about that. Once the healing is done, you're going to be the owner of 2 feet that are internally speaking, entirely made of titanium and silicon. It's going to be one hell of a kick – bone breaking potentially."

 _Present day:_

It was at dinner, after Pepper had gone home, that Tony brought up the topic of family and apparently he'd noticed that she had failed to talk about any of them. This certainly dampened her mood – she'd spent all afternoon trying to sneak pictures of Tony when he wasn't looking.

"You know, you've been here for a few days now and you haven't spoken about your parents once – don't you think they're worried about you?" He was looking less concerned, more curious.

"Well uh, they're actually both dead. All my family's dead. I stay with my friend Jennifer and her family." Jenny wore a small, yet sad smile. She'd had a long time to accept her parents' fates.

"What did they do for a living?" he asked.

"Well, my dad actually worked for you. He was killed in 9/11." Jenny was pretty sure he wouldn't know him.

"You're Andrew Brown's daughter." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah I am. How do you know?"

"Contrary to popular belief I do actually pay attention to what happens in my business. We lost 10 people that day – only one of them was from Scotland. Your dad was a good man, kid." The smile he passed over to Jenny was genuine, and he really did remember Andrew and was genuinely upset when he learned of his death. "What happened to your mom?"

"Oh, um, well – she was killed in the 7/7 bombings in London. They say that had she sat anywhere else she would have probably survived." Jenny looked down at her food. She really missed them terribly. Would they approve of what she was doing here? She hoped they would.

"Holy shit you are one unlucky kid. You know when you go home I want you to keep in touch. I'll give you my phone number and I'll text you – we probably won't be doing the surgery until the summer anyway so it'll be good to keep in contact. Plus, I just want to make sure you're OK because wow you've had a shitty hand so far!"

Jenny could only manage a small 'thank you' and a smile before returning to her food.

 _The following day:_

Jenny was an early riser, Tony was not. It was her penultimate day in Los Angeles, Pepper had already arrived for work, but had been busy on the phone all morning – she only caught parts of the conversation she was having "He won't want to see anybody without an appointment." "Well if you're not wanting to meet with Mr Stark who do you want to see?" "What you mean he's on his way?"

Jenny watched with a bemused expression as Pepper got more and more floundered. Eventually she hung up the phone. "Jenny, sweetie, there's a man on his way here to talk to you. He says he's from the Strategic Homeland Intervention something something Division. I wouldn't worry about it, the government usually gets involved when Tony does anything ridiculous, although this is the first time we've ever had these people over."

It was just then that the doorbell rang which Pepper went to answer. She returned with the man, middle aged, balding.

"Jenny, this is Agent Phil Coulson. He's from that government agency I told you about. I'll leave you to talk – if you need anything, JARVIS will get me." With that, she left – leaving Jenny alone with the man.

He gave a reassuring smile, Jenny wasn't good at hiding her emotions and she was very nervous.

"There's no need to worry Miss Brown, I'm just here to get you to sign some disclaimer papers and have a chat and then we're all done."

"What are the disclaimers for?" Jenny asked.

"In short, they say that you won't use your new feet for harm or malintent. If you do you'll be in serious trouble. I wouldn't worry about this, if you lead a good and normal life, this will never be of a concern. It's only if you go out with the intention to hurt people with them, which I'm sure you won't do." Jenny did feel reassured, even if the presence of a man from the government still made her nervous.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, they talked about everything; from her life before her parents died to the methods she used to study for exams. In that small frame of time they covered, what felt like, nearly every aspect of Jenny's life. She told him about how she wanted to do a PhD and all about her final degree exams that were coming up in May, as well as her excitement over the operation which had been set to happen on the 5th of June that year. His conversational skills were excellent and half the time she couldn't believe that she was telling him all of this information – they had only just met! Eventually though, it was time for him to leave not before he wished her all the best of luck for the future.

 _On the other side of the country:_

"So is she a threat?" his boss asked.

"No, not at all sir. She is definitely no cause for concern." he replied.

"Well then, I guess we can leave them to it –"

"There was something else Sir. I think she'd be perfect for the Programme."

"The Programme? We haven't found any suitable candidates in years. What makes you think that she is suitable?"

"She has the right mind-set sir. I questioned her on every aspect of how she lived her life, she seemed pretty perfect for it."

"Well if you're so sure, you are free to begin recruitment."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

When Jenny arrived back in Edinburgh airport and switched her phone on she saw that she had a text message, from Tony, wishing her good luck in her final semester of university. She quickly put the phone away when she heard her name being called out from Jennifer who was standing, with her parents, waiting in the arrivals lounge. Jennifer's parents were very kind people who did ultimately understand why she felt the need to take a break over Christmas but they did request that she let them know if she was ever going to do it again. Jennifer's questions mainly centred around Tony and she was quickly disappointed when she learned that Jenny had been unsuccessful in her quest to sneak pictures of the man.

True to his word, a few days later Jenny received another text from Tony, asking how she was getting on. She explained to him that Jennifer's parents seemed pretty supportive of the idea for surgery but they wanted to make sure that she wasn't making it all up so had requested a face time meeting with him and the surgeon. Amazingly, Tony had agreed and 2 days later he found himself staring at a laptop screen that held the images of Jenny's guardians. The experienced parents were certainly thorough in their questioning and a few hours later were satisfied that Jenny wasn't being harmed or exploited in any way.

The excitement over her Christmas break made returning to uni a slightly dull affair. Jenny and Jennifer attended the same university and even shared the same accommodation – they didn't do the same course though, Jenny's love of biology hadn't persuaded Jennifer to not do a law degree. Despite Jennifer's lack of interest in science, Jenny knew that one day she would make an excellent lawyer.

As her classes resumed, the only thing that would remind her of her adventures would be the odd random texts that she would get from Tony, always asking how she was getting on, always seeing if she was OK. Jenny very quickly began to appreciate having someone else in her life who actually cared and she found herself, on many occasions, losing track of time whilst having conversations with him. They were never romantic conversations, nothing like that, but they talked like friends would, like they had known each other for much longer than they actually had. Often, during their text chats he would end up teaching her about something, anything from the American political system to the way that Stark Industries was run. Soon enough, she became the kind of person that checked their phone constantly, always to see if there was another text to be read. She had never been that kind of a person before.

Over the coming weeks, as winter slowly fell away to spring, it was Jennifer that began to notice the change, not Jenny. Before she took off, Jennifer had been extremely worried about Jenny. Her best friend had gone through hell and it seemed like every few years something would happen that would disrupt the small amount of peace that Jenny had been able to develop. By the time they got to the end of last semester, Jennifer was at the verge of asking for help from the uni. But now, Jennifer found herself actually forgetting the nightmare of an upbringing that Jenny had had. And she was always being reminded about it, every time she saw Jenny skip meals or saw the growing bags under her eyes she was reminded. But now, she was actually forgetting. This wasn't because Jennifer was being a terrible friend, but because Jenny was actually looking _better_. She hadn't skipped a single meal since she got back, the bags under her eyes were slowly disappearing. She looked, she looked _well_ , actually healthy and well. Jennifer thanked every deity for whatever Tony had done or was currently doing to make her friend finally feel better.

Tony knew that he had better things to do, for one, he had a weapons demo coming up in a few months and the weapons due to be showcased were nowhere near ready. Any normal person would be quite worried about it and he knew that, but he was no normal person and he knew that too. The weapons would be ready, he was pretty confident about that. He was also pretty confident that he knew the exact reason for his decrease in productivity – and it all came down to Jenny. His relationship with Jenny was a weird one, for him. He was not used to having a woman in his life that he didn't actually want to take to bed, apart from Pepper, who actually didn't count because he had thought about doing _that_ with Pepper. Tony found himself actually caring about her, worrying about her like a father would worry about his daughter. She had looked rough when he had hit her, not rough from the injuries, but just genuinely exhausted and seeing that look on a kid so young concerned him. What made it all the worse was knowing that this was Andrew's kid. He had hired Andrew personally, the man could be single-handedly credited for adding the UK to his list of military customers. The country had avoided SI before Andrew came along. He knew that he had a kid, he'd mentioned it once after he'd had several drinks but he never gave any details. If Tony could describe Andrew he would say that he was extremely private about his personal life. When he realised that the exhausted kid he'd hit was Andrew's, he'd been heartbroken.

In Jenny's opinion, semesters are very good at being too short and this one was no different. Before long, the Easter break was upon them and it was time for them to buckle down and study which Jenny was very good at. It was one of the few things that both of the girls were good at doing, both of them were very intelligent and on some level, actually enjoyed the challenge of learning new information. Studying was something that Jenny had turned into a bit of an art form and over the next few weeks she methodically and logically ploughed her way through all of her modules making sure that she was taking in as much information as possible.

By the time that their exams were over, both girls felt that they had tried their hardest and given their best shot, all they had to do now was wait for their results which were due to be posted in just a few short weeks. Soon enough, it was time for them to leave their dorm and return to Jennifer's parent's house. On the morning that they were due to leave, she turned on the TV to watch the news for a bit, she froze in shock and fear.

Tony had been kidnapped.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It had been 3 long, long days and Jenny had heard nothing from anyone concerning Tony. She was having to rely on the media to get all of her information and there wasn't exactly loads of it. From what she could gather he'd been in Afghanistan showing the US military some weapons he'd been designing when a road side bomb had hit their convoy and Tony had been taken. At the moment, nobody knew where they'd taken him, why they had taken him or even who had taken him. It was all just one long agonizing mystery.

Jenny was trying desperately to keep her head above the water. Tony had given her a lot of his attention over the past few months and she didn't want to throw away all of the progress she had made since then. She ate all of her meals, she made sure that she got out of bed every day at a normal time, all just to make sure that she didn't waste what he'd given her.

It was after 3 days that they finally heard from Pepper. Jenny could recognise the strain in Pepper's voice, it mirrored her own when she was trying to stop herself from crying. Their conversation was relatively brief, with each trying to establish how the other was holding up and both realising that neither was doing very well. Pepper told her that Rhodey, Tony's friend since his college days, hadn't stopped looking – Pepper started crying at that point again and the phone line went dead.

Jennifer had absolutely no idea how to approach this problem with Jenny. The two of them had gone through bereavements before, too many times really, so Jennifer knew what to do when her friend lost yet another family member, but this was different from that. Tony wasn't dead, at least not officially, and if he was nobody knew about it. For now, he was still presumed to be alive. This situation was new to both of them. As the days drew on, they fell into a bit of a routine. Jennifer would wake her up at 8, during difficult times like this she knew that Jenny did better if she had a normal a day as possible. She also always made sure they got out the house at some point – just so she at least saw daylight. But this was different. Before, the goal was to move on and remember, to be able to get her life back on track whist reassuring her that it was OK to move on. This time though, things were _different_. Tony wasn't confirmed dead so there was nothing to move on from, there was no starting point. Jenny had been left in this odd limbo where one day they could find his body or they could find him alive. How do you move on from something like that?

Over the course of the next 2 weeks, no new information reached them which was something that was really beginning to worry Jennifer. Her friend's operation was scheduled to take place just 2 weeks from now and they had heard nothing. They had no idea if it had been cancelled or if the date was going to be changed – nothing! Despite her parents initial concern regarding the surgery, Jennifer's parents had been thrilled, they'd had the job of watching both girls grow up together, which meant that they'd also seen Jenny deteriorate to the state that she was in now.

But soon enough, their phone rang again. This time it was the surgeon who was confirming that despite recent setbacks, the surgery was going to go ahead as planned.

 _2 weeks later:_

Things were different for Jenny when she arrived in LA this time around. For one, she wasn't alone, Happy had accompanied her the entirety of her journey, but she was also rather sad. Over the course of the past month, despite concerns from Jennifer, she had been able to move on, just a bit. In order to do that though, she'd had to pretend to herself that he was actually dead – it was the only way to do it and every day pretending he was dead got slightly easier, because they had still heard nothing. She had been assured that he would have wanted the surgery to go ahead just as they had planned. The experience though was going to be a bit bizarre. The original plan was to have Jenny move in to Stark's beach house for six weeks after the surgery in order to recover. This plan hadn't changed so she was going to be living in his house whilst he was _missing_. It was all a bit weird.

The surgery itself was successful. Jenny was in the operating theatre for 12 long hours whilst they replaced her old ankles with new titanium and silicon ones. The following day she was taken back to the beach house where she had been spending the last couple of days. Jenny considered it rude to out-right admit that she was bored, she would describe it as being _occupationally challenged_. Neither Pepper, Rhodey or Happy lived there so she spent most of her days pre and post surgery trying to entertain herself, which got considerably more difficult when she became wheelchair bound following the operation. It was ironic really, the surgery that would give her back her mobility would require her to not put weight on her ankles for 6 weeks.

She was visited on occasion, she was actually visited daily by the surgeon who would come in to check in on her recovery. Visits from the others though were few and far between, Jenny thought that this was perfectly understandable though, she was after-all living in their friend's house whilst he was MIA. After 3 weeks, the doorbell rang at a time that she wasn't expecting it to ring. She wheeled herself to the front door (Tony had installed lifts for her) and opened it.

"Oh, it's you." Jenny was confused.

"Good afternoon Miss Brown. Sorry for not informing you of my arrival. Is it OK if I come in?" Agent Coulson looked down at her expectantly.

After getting him settled on the sofa with a good cup of tea, Jenny sat across from him and got down to business.

"So what brings you here, Agent Coulson?"

"I'm actually here to offer you a job" Coulson set down his tea.

"I don't understand."

"We want you to work for SHIELD."

"Yeah, I understood that part, but why do you want to offer _me_ a job? I presume it's for something to do with science right? But, I thought you only took people with PhDs, I just have an honours degree. And if you're thinking I'd make a good spy I'd think again because I am a terrible liar." She laughed nervously.

"No. Miss Brown we're not offering you a job in our science or field divisions we're offering you a job in the logistics division."

Jenny remained silent but the confusion plastered on her face told Agent Coulson everything he needed to know.

"Miss Brown, SHIELD had 3 divisions; scitech, field and logistics. Logistics deals with the day to day running of SHIELD. They specialise in using logic to determine which agents would be best matched for which missions and which handlers would be best matched for which agents. It's like playing a very high-tech game of snap. The people we recruit for logistics have to think in a very specific way. Logical thinking has to be everything to them and it has to control everything they do. When I first met you, I was trying to establish if you were that kind of person, which you are. The job is very important, as you can imagine agents in the logistics division deal with very confidential information so security is paramount."

"So I don't go on missions or anything like that?"

"No, that's not your job. But you'll probably be made aware of nearly every mission that actually happens. Technically, you will be a spy with a title of Agent, but you won't actually be going on missions."

"OK but I'm still confused as to why you want me?"

"We find it really hard to recruit for logistics, the geniuses all converge toward scitech, the soldiers converge toward field, and very few people of what's left have the logical requirements for the job. Because of this, the division only has 30 people in it and all training occurs on the job so you won't be going to the academy. You still have to do 6 weeks of basic training but everyone has to do that. So what do you think?"

"I dunno…"

"Did I mention the pay? Because of the information logistics has access to all logistics recruits move through the first 4 security levels in their first year and there are only 10 levels. Once your year of training is up you'll start out as quite a high member of SHIELD and the pay reflects that."

"But what about my life in Scotland? I can't just leave them…"

"You'll get time off during the year for holidays just like any other job. Your circumstances are actually quite convenient, we feel that the best cover will be if you say you got a job at Stark Industries. It would work. So what do you say?"

Jenny didn't actually think about it at all before answering, which she probably should have, considering what she was signing up for…

"I'm in."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

For Jenny, the next few weeks were a bit of a blur. She spent a lot of time face-timing Jennifer trying to convince her that the bullshit story about her new job with Stark Industries was true, all the while trying to forget what was actually happening with Tony. She had now been living in his house for 6 weeks on her own and still they had heard no news. Pepper had stopped coming round to see her and so had Rhodey, Jenny didn't blame them – it was all very understandable. The only reason Happy kept visiting was that she needed him to do the shopping for her. Jenny had resigned herself to the fact that after she left here in a few days, she would never see them again.

When her casts came off at the hospital she was surprised at what she saw, despite being previously warmed about it. Internally, her ankles and feet were now made of titanium and silicon, but you would never be able to tell this from the outside. From the outside, they just looked like a normal pair of feet and they were definitely her feet too – they just looked so _normal_. Whilst she was still on the bed, the surgeon got her to perform a few simple exercises to show that she had the full range of motion and then it was time for the moment of truth, could she stand up? As she swung her legs over the edge of the bed she was hesitant to put weight on her feet, unsure as to what to expect, but sure enough she lowered herself down slowly. And felt no pain. Nothing at all. A huge smile spread across her face as she took a few tentative steps forward. She turned her head and saw the corridor and the only thing she could think of was running down it, so she did.

Pure elation. Jenny would describe the feeling as pure elation. As she made her way back to her hospital bed she couldn't help feeling just a little sad too. There were so many people that would have loved to have seen this moment, and none of them were able to. This small revelation seemed to give Jenny a new resolve, she would really try this time, _really_ try to make sure that she lived a full and happy life because there were just so many people who deserved to see it.

The day she left LA for home was bittersweet. Over the course of the past 2 months she had absolutely accepted the opinion that Tony was dead and that she was never going to see him again – they had no evidence to say otherwise. It was just her luck really, just as she was getting to know someone, to get to know them as a parent they were taken from her. Jennifer did always say that she was unlucky.

The plans for the next few months of her life were going to be rather busy. She wasn't due to move to New York until January 2009, which at this point was 6 months away. For now, her life would revolve around one thing – training, and she had a hell of a lot of that to do. Due to years of inactivity she had gotten slightly pudgy - she wasn't enormous by any means but her BMI was closer to obese than it was to normal. So after returning back to Jennifer's parent's house she set herself up a little routine. Every day she would go out for a run and every day she slightly increased the distance. If asked, Jenny probably wouldn't admit that on the first day she was only able to run 100m – her cardiovascular system really wasn't used to exercise. After her run, she would make her way to her local gym to try and build up muscle. Her afternoons consisted of making her way through the 'Self-defence for Dummies' DVD that Agent Coulson had given her. She did this every day for a month – the only thing that broke this routine was an unexpected phone call from Pepper.

"Jenny, sweetie? It's Pepper"

"Pepper?" Jenny couldn't believe it.

"They've found Tony. He's alive!" Jenny could practically hear the smile on her face.

"Oh my god! Is he OK?"

"He seems to be. Look I'm sorry about not coming to see –"

"Don't. Don't worry about it. It's been a really shit time for everyone including you. We need to focus on Tony now. Do you want me to come over?"

"No, not yet but he'll be in touch. Thanks for being so understanding."

"It's no problem. I'll speak to you soon."

Sure enough, the next day her phone received a message that simply said 'hey kiddo'. He was keen to know how she was getting on and went as far to apologise for not being there which Jenny dismissed immediately. When she tried to find out what had happened he stopped replying causing Jenny to instantly regret her ill thought out question. The next she heard from him just a few hours later when he was suddenly on her TV screen giving a press conference whilst sitting on the floor and eating a cheeseburger. Jenny felt her eyebrows hit the top of her forehead when he announced that the company that had produced weapons for decades would stop producing weapons with immediate effect. It was three days before she got another message from him, this time apologising for the radio silence. He explained that things were apparently really hectic over there and that when this was all over she could come over. Jenny asked him what the hell he was talking about but he went radio silent again. In the meantime, she returned to her routine and tried to figure what the hell was going on with Tony.

Over the course of the next six weeks, she continued to hear very little from him. She got the odd message and sometimes they had full conversations like they used to have, but most of the time all she heard was nothing. Her fitness had increased massively and Jenny was now proudly able to say that she could run a full mile. She had needed to buy a whole new wardrobe due to the amount of weight that she had lost.

It was at the end of October that weird pictures started appearing on the internet. People were calling it a UFO, others were saying it was a missile but Jenny disagreed, all of the pictures, in her opinion, showed a flying object in the shape of a man. The flying man remained a mystery until several days later when it appeared to fight with another man shaped robot in the middle of LA, the press refused to actually state where the fight was taking place. The media started calling him Iron Man and the following day, during yet another press conference, Tony told the world the truth. Jenny immediately hit speed dial on her phone.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Tony answered his phone the minute he left the press conference, Jenny didn't even give him the chance to say hello.

"Is this what's been keeping you so busy for the past 6 weeks? Turning yourself into a human fucking torpedo? Have you actually lost it completely?" Jenny was pissed.

"Are you quite finished?"

"Yeah sorry. But that doesn't mean that you're not answering my questions."

"I know, I know. Just gimme a minute here. I made the suit to escape Afghanistan. When I got back I started to make changes because it wasn't perfect. I then realised that Stane was the reason I was kidnapped in the first place and that he still wanted me dead so he could have the company." Tony's voice gradually grew louder and angrier and he disclosed the truth, and rightly so. Stane had been like a father to him.

"Holy shit, I'm sorry to hear that. How are you holding up?"

Tony gave a small chuckle. "Look how the tables have turned – you're now asking me if _I'm_ ok."

"I'm being serious."

"I know you are. I'm…I'm getting there. I don't want to tell you the specifics of what happened there because, to be honest, I can't. But, I'm getting there. Look, on a radical change of subject I feel guilty for being a selfish shit for the past few weeks so why don't you come over for your birthday – I'll pay for you to fly first class and everything."

"Oh wow thank you! You know I don't like massive parties though – "

"Ha! Yeah I do know that, which is why I was gonna suggest that you come over so we can lounge in pyjamas, watch movies and eat pizza all week."

"Now that sounds like the kind of plan I like."

"Yeah it does, catch you later, kid."

On some level, Jenny was actually relieved to hear that that's what had been keeping her friend so pre-occupied for the last few weeks. She herself knew first-hand the effects of mental trauma and was getting concerned that her friend was suffering the same fate.

The 2 weeks leading up to her 22nd birthday passed very quickly and before she knew it she had arrived at the airport for her 1st class trip to LA. Jenny had never flown first class before. Ever. As a result she was a little nervous. She would have been terrified had Tony not reassured her that the people that travelled first class weren't scary monsters and they weren't going to eat her the minute they realised she didn't own a fortune 500 company. The champagne flute that was handed to her as she sat down did the job of calming her completely, as did the next one and the one after that. Before long, she was sleeping in the land of luxury 37,000 ft above the Atlantic Ocean.

Jenny stifled a laugh when she saw Happy waiting for her at the arrivals lounge. He was dressed in a traditional butler's suit and the man wearing it was most definitely not a butler.

"It's great to see you but what are you wearing?" Jenny couldn't help the laugh that escaped her as she handed him her suitcase.

"The boss wanted to make sure you were given a proper reception when you arrived."

Sounds like Tony.

The first thing Jenny said to Tony when she finally arrived at the beach house wasn't "hi" or "I'm so glad you survived your traumatic event it's great to see you again" no. The first thing she said was, "Why is your chest glowing?"

Tony could only laugh at that as he beckoned her down to the workshop to give her the full technological explanation of recent events. Plus it also gave him the perfect opportunity to see how his handiwork was holding up. He'd noticed that she was different the moment he saw her walk up the path to the house. There were the obvious things first of all – she was missing a stick and she had clearly lost weight. Then there were the less obvious signs – she was holding herself straighter that before, she had a confidence in her step that had been missing, no bags under her eyes, no gaunt look. In Tony's opinion, this was a much better outcome for the life of Andrew's daughter. He hadn't been lying when he told her the operation would change her life completely.

He also hadn't been lying when he told her of the plans for the week and after only a couple of days she had eaten so much pizza she felt as if she were turning into one. She decided to take the opportunity of trying out her new defence moves in the boxing ring with Happy as a way to work it off. On the 22nd anniversary of her birth Tony had arranged for her to go on a tour of Hollywood as he knew she was obsessed with the place. He'd also booked the most expensive seats at the theatre which just happened to be showing Coriolanus, one of her favourite Shakespeare plays. When they returned home he presented her with a cheque for a thousand dollars. Both of them knew that he could afford to add several zeros to the cheque but both also knew she would have never have accepted a sum of money larger than what he was giving her. Tony thought that she could use it to buy herself some swanky spy equipment for when she started her new job which, despite being sworn to secrecy, she had told him of.

It was all over too quickly in Jenny's opinion and with a promise to keep in touch, she left to go back home. She knew that the weeks leading up to the 3rd January were going to be the last of what she was calling her 'old' life, both for her, and for Jennifer. Jennifer was going to be moving as well just not as far as Jenny. She had been given a place at a law firm in Glasgow and was going to be leaving home just a few days after her. For Jenny, January would hold the key to the next chapter in her life – and she couldn't wait for it to begin.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Jenny hated basic training, but Jenny also loved basic training.

She hated the fact that they had to sleep in bunkbeds in one massive dorm that held all of the current trainees – all 20 of them. She hated the fact that every day for 6 weeks she had to get up at 6am and would only go to bed at 11:30, unless they had a night-time exercise, in which case she might not be in bed until the early hours of the morning. She also hated the fact that all of the 'field' trainees were much fitter than her.

Jenny loved the fact that she was much fitter than all the scitech trainees, like all of them. She loved the fact that she was finally being taught martial arts – something that she had wanted to do since she was very small. She also loved the fact that she was getting to start her job immediately after finishing, whereas the field and scitech trainees would have to finish their 3 years at the academy first. But most of all, she loved the guest lessons that were given by senior and experienced agents within SHIELD.

On their first day, they'd had a guest lesson from Agent Hill who spent 2 hours teaching the basics in self-defence, Jenny actually managed to surprise herself by not being the most useless one in the class. On the last day of the first week they got a guest lesson by Agent May who was going to teach them the basics in firearm control and usage, basically 'how to use a gun and live to tell the tale'. The class itself was simple enough, there were several stations and the students would take it in turns to load up a basic handgun and fire it at the target and preferably not miss. The problem was that Jenny had never fired a gun before, she had never held a gun before, she had never seen a gun before, in fact, she didn't even known anyone who owned a gun. The only people in Scotland who had guns were rich people that liked to go hunting for deer. As a result, Jenny was terrified of guns. When she got to her station, Jenny didn't even want to touch the gun let alone use it. Her hesitation was noticed by Agent May who admonished her by saying:

"Cadet Brown, you aren't going to pass this class if you don't do anything."

Jenny could only respond by giving a quick panicked glance at Agent May. After another 60 seconds had gone by with Jenny still staring at the gun, Agent May decided to intervene. She spoke to Jenny quietly so that no-one else would hear,

"If you have it pointing away from you, it's not going to hurt you."

She took Jenny's hand and picked up the gun with her, then moved her finger to pull the trigger.

"See? It's not so scary is it?"

Jenny gave her a small smile and shook her head, no, it wasn't that scary after all.

This doesn't mean to say that Jenny suddenly became the best shooter of her team after hours training that would play to a song montage in a film. No, Jenny was adequate at best but she would pass. Trainees that were potentially going to go on to become assets were required to hit their exact target 95% of the time with the rest being within a few inches, field trainees were required to hit their target 75% of the time with the rest being within a few inches of it. Scitech and logistics trainees on the other hand just had to make sure they hit the _paper_ 75% of the time, a target that Jenny was going to achieve. Jenny's favourite guest lesson came from Agent Coulson, who spent the afternoon with them on their 3rd week teaching them manipulation techniques.

The Friday of the 6th week was a very nervous one for the cadets as it was the day when they found out if they had passed or not. Failure would mean that they would have to leave SHIELD. SHIELD required every Agent to pass basic training, no matter where they were going afterwards. Jenny ended up ranking 13th in her class out of twenty with a score high enough to pass – only one candidate, one of the scientists, had a score too low and was therefore required to leave SHIELD. For the other 18 cadets, they were going to be bussed back to the academy that afternoon, Jenny however was getting picked up by a quinjet to take her straight to the hellicarrier so she could start her job the following day.

Jenny wasn't wearing a catsuit – she had made that explicitly clear on her requirements form that she was, in no way, ever going to wear the catsuit. Thankfully, they actually provided her with combat style trousers and a top to wear instead, similar to the attire of Agent May. She was introduced to the man that would be her mentor, Agent John. Yes, that was his last name – his first name was George, his mum had a thing for the Beatles. Agent John showed her the ropes of the logistics team. All 30 of the team were based on the hellicarrier with most working on the control deck. The team was split into several subsections based on their job. The 'level assigner' received all potential missions from analytics (a sub-section of field) and it was her job to give missions security clearances and to prepare mission dossiers. She was a level 9 agent with special permission to see documents only for level 10 agents – she had a very important job. Once she had given a mission a level it was passed onto the appropriate 'agent assigner' whose job it was to assign specific agents, or groups of agents, to missions. This was the job that Jenny was training to do. Currently however, Jenny was a level one agent so would only have access to the most basic and simple of all missions. The 'handler assigners' were the ones who decided which agent was going to become your handler, they had access to the files of every trainee and it was them who decided that Jenny's handler was going to be Agent Coulson.

For the first few days, Jenny wasn't able to do much more than run around sending files off to various people or getting to grips with the performance files of all SHIELD agents. On her 4th day she got her first mission. It was a very simple mission, hence the level one status, and her job was now to find the right agent for it. Every SHIELD agent had a performance file that described their strengths and weaknesses, every mission had a skills criteria that the assigned agent would need to have. Jenny had to match the best agent with the mission. It was whilst she was scanning the files that she saw them for the first time as they walked onto the bridge. She turned to George who was sitting at the desk next to her,

"George, who are they?"

"Jenny, we are sitting in a room full of people you are going to have to be more specific."

"Gorgeous 1 and Gorgeous 2" she said like it was obvious, whilst nodding to the 2 people.

George laughed openly, "You mean Agents Barton and Romanoff?" he laughed again. "Gorgeous 1 and 2, oh that's the best thing I've heard all week."

As Gorgeous 1 and Gorgeous 2 were turning to leave the bridge, Jenny decided to be a bit reckless.

"I'm gonna go talk to them" she said with a determined look on her face as she was getting up from her chair.

"No! Jenny that's a bad idea!" George desperately tried to prevent what he knew was going to happen but she was already walking towards them.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Agents Barton and Romanoff, or Gorgeous 1 and 2 as Jenny called them, had a bit of a _reputation_ when it came to dealing with junior agents within SHIELD. In the past 6 months alone, they caused 3 of them to actually wet themselves after confrontations with them. It was rumoured that one of these agents wet himself after just a single glare from Romanoff. Not that Jenny knew any of this, she hadn't even been there a week and as such had heard none of the rumours.

Jenny had to do a little jog in order to catch up to them, which she did in the corridor just off the control deck.

"Hi!" she was a little out of breath so accidently shouted it at them.

They both stopped and turned around and the three of them proceeded to stare at each other for a few seconds. It was Romanoff that broke the silence.

"Well? What do you want?" Romanoff proceeded to give Jenny a hell of a glare which Barton proceeded to copy. Jenny tried to not be phased.

"Oh. Well, I just wanted to say hi. Um, I'm new here so haven't got the chance to meet you yet." Jenny tried to give them a small smile in an effort to try and end the killer glares they were still giving her.

"Well you've met us now so you can run along back to your desk." Barton said as he shooed her away from them. They both turned to leave but Jenny wasn't quite finished with them yet so jogged after them.

"We could grab a coffee sometime!" she shouted behind them. They turned their heads and replied "NO!" in unison before seeming to have a silent conversation before walking away.

In all honesty, Jenny had to return to her desk a little disappointed. George told her that he was astonished she was even still alive. It was then that she was finally told of their reputations.

Within the logistics department, assets like Barton and Romanoff held a bit of a special status. Every mission that an asset carried out was potentially a life or death situation. As such, the logistics department had to be doubly sure that the missions assigned to them were absolutely perfect and within the logistics team every asset had their own 'checker' that was used as another pair of eyes to approve missions. Because of the job's importance, every checker was required to know their assets very, very well. Jenny didn't know who Barton's checker was, but she did know that Romanoff's checker was a man called Agent Williams who sat in the desk opposite her. Agent Williams was also an Agent Assigner, like Agent John and herself.

Jenny finished her first assignment within the next few hours and sent the completed dossier off to their handler. After her shift finished at 8pm she made her was back to her room. She screamed when she saw Agent Romanoff sitting on her bed. Jenny didn't like frights. She quickly closed the door to not draw attention to herself.

"You know, for a SHIELD agent you scare far too easily." Romanoff said.

Jenny placed her hand on her chest to try and calm her racing heart. "Well technically I'm not fully qualified so it doesn't count." Romanoff just shrugged her shoulders, got off the bed and folded her arms to make herself look more foreboding.

"Believe me when I say this kid. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be so tell me, and tell me honestly. Why are you not scared of me?" There was that glare again.

Jenny frowned in confusion. Was this all that this was about? Because she didn't piss herself or faint or run away when she met them?

"Well, I have no reason to be scared of you." Jenny replied confidently.

"Do you even know who I am?" Jenny nodded. "Do you know what I do here in SHIELD?" Jenny nodded again. "Do you know that I can kill you in 200 different ways with that paper clip sitting on your bed side table?" Jenny's eyebrows rose, she was genuinely impressed.

"Answer the goddamn question!" Romanoff's voice rose slightly, indicating her annoyance.

"Look, I told you. I have no reason to be. Yeah I get it that you could probably kill me with my toothbrush but then I could kill you with the gun currently strapped to my hip. But I choose not to. It's a rule isn't it that all agents have to be within 5 feet of a firearm?" Romanoff nodded in confirmation. "Well, they all have guns and knives and whatever else and as far as I'm aware no other agents have died as a result. They're choosing not to kill people. The assets like yourselves can kill more efficiently and creatively than I could but none of you actually kill when you're not on a job. Because you choose not to." They proceeded to stare at each other for the next few seconds.

"See? I was right Tasha admit it." Jenny screamed again at the voice coming from the air vent which proceeded to be lifted open to reveal Agent Barton who dropped down into her room.

"Please tell me you don't spy on me like that regularly?" Jenny asked.

"Nope this is a new thing" Barton said smugly. "Thanks for helping me win the bet, kid."

Just as they were proceeding to leave her room, Romanoff turned around to inform her that her and Barton would be having lunch in the cafeteria the next day at 1. Jenny nodded to confirm the unspoken invitation.

And so began one of the oddest traditions in hellicarrier history: the regular luncheons between 2 of SHIELDS deadliest assassins and one of SHIELDS newest recruits. Of course, as you can imagine they didn't meet up every day. Both Clint and Tasha, as she now called them, were very busy and were regularly away for missions that could last for weeks but when they returned, Jenny would be there to have lunch with them at the appointed hour.

After 3 months of this, Jenny herself had developed her own reputation among fellow SHIELD agents. Outside logistics, she was the junior agent with a death wish. Inside logistics, she was the junior agent with a natural talent for working in logistics and as such she passed from level 1 to level 2, then level 2 to level 3 with ease. By the time she got to October of 2009, Jenny had well and truly settled into her life at SHIELD. Every so often she was allowed a week off which she would spend back at Stark Tower, lazing about watching films whilst Tony would try to get government secrets off her. She would also periodically call Jennifer, who was settling in nicely in Glasgow.

It was in the October that she was called to an unexpected meeting with her handler, Phil, the director and Barton and Romanoff.

"Is everything ok?" she asked as she walked into the meeting room.

"Yes. No need to worry Agent Brown. Take a seat." Phil said.

The director decided to introduce himself. "I believe we haven't had the opportunity to meet. I guess you know who I am?"

"Yes, Sir." Jenny replied.

"Well, Agent Brown." The Director continued. "You have amassed yourself a bit of a reputation. Your mentor, Agent John, tells me that you are the best logistics recruit he's ever seen and that's coming from a man who has nearly 20 years experience. You also seem to have made a bit of an impression on Agents Barton and Romanoff. The point I'm trying to make here Agent Brown, is that we think that you can handle a higher workload compared to your colleagues." At this point, Coulson took over.

"I believe that you are aware with how the checker system works within logistics". Jenny confirmed her awareness, "Yeah, I am."

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but we certainly have. You spend more time with Barton and Romanoff than either of their checkers do. That is not an ideal situation. As you are aware, checkers need to know their assets very well. Which is why we're promoting you."

The Director picked up where Coulson left off. "We're gonna do something here that's never been done before – we're making you the checker for both Romanoff _and_ Barton. This is a massive responsibility. Do you understand?"

Jenny was speechless. After several seconds her mind finally caught up with her. "What about their current checkers?"

"We're going to make them aware of the situation after this meeting is over. Your free to go back to work now agent."

A massive smile spread across Jenny's face as she got up and thanked them profusely. She was still beaming when she got back to her desk. 15 minutes later, Agent Williams returned to his desk, his face red with anger. Jenny quickly gathered up her things to go somewhere else to work, she felt guilty about taking his job but right now felt that it was best to just leave him alone. She entered the stairwell at the far end of the control deck. She didn't notice that someone else had walked in after her.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Jenny only noticed that someone was behind her when she felt their cold hands wrap around her neck. She dropped the tablet she was holding in surprise as the hands began to squeeze. Her own hands rushing to her neck to try and remove the offending objects that were blocking her airway.

She couldn't breathe.

She was roughly pushed down to the ground and got brief respite as the offender turned her onto her back, quickly replacing his hands around her neck.

She couldn't _breathe_.

She got a good look at Agent Williams as he manoeuvred his legs to straddling her.

She couldn't _fucking_ breathe.

As she clawed at his hands and tried to hit his face and eyes she saw spittle escape from his mouth through the effort of closing her windpipe.

She couldn't FUCKING BREATHE.

Her legs started to flail aimlessly and the movements in her arms became more frantic. Her lungs began to burn and burn and burn and burn.

SHE COULDN'T FUCKING BREATHE.

And they burned and burned and burned and burned. Her ears were buzzing and her vision was blotchy and her lungs burned and they burned.

SHE COULDN'T FUCKING BREATHE.

She saw a flash of movement as a foot collided with the side of Agent Williams, his mass falling off her and his hands finally releasing the grip they had on her neck. Jenny promptly rolled to the side and emptied the contents of her stomach, her breaths coming fast as her body tried to replace its depleted oxygen levels. When she rolled back over, she saw Tasha enter with a first aid kit being quickly followed by the Director and Phil. It was only then that she turned her head to the right to see Clint standing there with Williams pinned to the grate of the handrail that ran up the staircase, a small trickle of blood making its way down his face. As Tasha propped her up, Fury made his presence felt,

"What the HELL is going on here?" he yelled

Barton, who was still pinning Williams to wall replied, "I saw this asshole follow Jenny in here and then I came in to see his hands round her throat, Sir." Barton tightened his grip on Williams making him whimper.

"Romanoff?" the Director turned his attention away from Barton.

"Physically she's OK but she's having an acute stress reaction, Sir." Tasha kept her attention on Jenny whilst addressing Fury.

"Noted. Take her down to the infirmary now. Barton, stick this little prick in a cell. Coulson, you come with me. And you ASSES" he turned his attention to the crowd of agents that had formed at the door, "BETTER GET BACK TO WORK". The crowd quickly dispersed.

Tasha helped her up and led her by the arm to the infirmary and all the while Jenny remained silent, her gaze fixed straight ahead. An hour later, the doctor confirmed that physically she would be OK other than the horrific hand shaped bruises that were beginning to form on her neck, the persistent cough and the blood-shot eyes. Yet Jenny had still not said a single word. Throughout the psychologist's evaluation later that afternoon, Jenny had sat still on the bed, clutching her knees and tucking them high into her chest. She was still not talking and all she could think about was how much she wanted her mum. The psychologist confirmed Tasha's diagnosis of Acute Stress Disorder.

Jenny was still on the same bed when she woke up the next morning. Her sleep had been dreamless which was slightly comforting. Clint was sitting in a chair next to her bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, obviously having had a very uncomfortable night. The chair next to him was empty.

"Tasha's off getting us some breakfast" he told her when she looked at the empty chair. "How is your throat?" he asked.

"It still hurts" she said quietly, tracing the hand shaped bruises with her fingers.

"And your head? How do you feel?"

"I…I don't know. I don't really feel anything to be honest. Is that normal?" she asked.

"Yeah. We spoke to the Doc and he said that…sometimes…when people experience trauma, their brains don't cope very well so they turn off for a little bit. That's…kinda like what yours has done." He tried to explain.

"Will it turn back on?"

"Of course it will" he gave her reassuring smile. Natasha returned a few minutes later with breakfast.

"Coulson's put you on leave until you feel better" Tasha said as she handed Jenny a Croissant. "And there's another thing. The Director and Coulson want you to decide what happens to Williams."

"What?" she replied.

Clint scoffed as he chewed on the pastry, "Personally I think he should be strung up by his balls."

"Well it's not up to you, is it?" she sent a glare his way. "They're giving you a week to think about it."

Clint and Tasha remained with her for the rest of the morning but they had to return to their work that afternoon. The Doc had given her the OK to leave so she made her way back to her room. As she got to her bathroom, she got a good look at herself for the first time. She looked like shit. Her eyes were blood shot and there was still a small trail of vomit on her chin that she hadn't noticed before. The handprints were, really handprints. Jenny could see the individual finger marks and everything. She knew what she was feeling, or _wasn't_ feeling rather, was not normal. She knew that there should be fear or at least tears or something, but there was just nothing there. She felt _numb_.

The nightmares started that night. She should have been expecting them, it was inevitable really. But they came for her the night after that and the night after that as well. 4 days after the attack Jenny was exhausted. She was the kind of person that really needed good nights of sleep to function. It was a small blessing that Coulson had put her on temporary leave. In order to try and stop the nightmares she had started trying to distract herself throughout the day. Usually by reading or watching films or even going to the gym, but nothing seemed to be working. By the fourth day she decided to actually do what Coulson and Fury had asked her – deciding what to do with Williams. Jenny knew that what had happened was way out of character for him. He was a quiet man usually and took his work very seriously but he was never _violent_. Something wasn't right here. She needed to do some digging.

She started with the man that could possibly be Williams only close friend in SHIELD. Agent Markham had lunch with Williams every day, his desk situated on the other side of the control deck from hers, quite close to the stairwell where the attack happened. She didn't think that she would have any trouble walking past that door to get to his desk but as she approached she slowly grew to a halt. As she stared at the door her heart started to race, her palms were getting clammy and she started to hyperventilate. Unbeknownst to her, all eyes on the control deck had now turned to her direction. She was only drawn out of her stare when a gentle hand touched her arm,

"I believe you're looking for me? Let's go somewhere else, away from here" Agent Markham slowly led her away from the door out into the corridor.

"Thank you," she replied. "How did you know I was looking for you?"

"Let's face it, you weren't gonna be walking by my way for the scenery."

Jenny gave him a small smile in response, "That's very true. Look I wanted to talk to you about Williams. What's going on with him at the moment? I mean, like, what's happening in his life?"

"You're wanting to know why he snapped the way he did? Which is what it was by the way. The guys not a secret serial killer or anything. Look I've known the guy for nearly 20 years, he's been at SHIELD nearly as long as I have. But you're right, his life's crazy right now. I want you to know that I'm only telling you this because of the shit amount of trouble he's in. So please, don't go around telling everybody this – only the people who need to know."

Jenny had subconsciously started to frown, concerned about the knowledge she was about to be imparted with.

"The records are all there, all out in the open. So you can check that I'm not lying." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "It's his son. He has an aggressive form of leukaemia and it's in its final stages. The kid's only 10 years old. He's not responding to treatment and Williams has exhausted the treatments that his insurance covers so he re-mortgaged his house to send him to this clinic in Houston but he's not responding to that either. The Doctors have given him 6 months to live. And _now_ he's lost part of his job that he really loved. His life is falling apart around him."

Jenny didn't know what to say or think even, it didn't help that she was still feeling the effects of the Acute Stress Disorder.

"Look, I know what happened to you was awful and I feel terrible about it. But I feel awful for Williams too." With that he turned and walked away.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

With that information, the only thing Jenny felt she could do was return to her room. It was awful, what was happening to Williams was awful and as she pondered this in the comfort of her bed, she noticed that the numbness was gone just as she started to cry. She cried for herself, but she also cried for Williams.

There were no nightmares that night.

As she made her way to Fury's office the next morning, she found herself being slightly nervous – he wasn't going to like what she was going to say,

"Come in" he said as she knocked on the door. "Ah, Agent Brown. You look different. I take it the ASD is passing?"

"Yes, Sir." She replied.

"But you aren't here to ask to return to work are you?"

A small smile graced her lips, "No, Sir" she confirmed.

"Well, what do you want to do with him then?" he asked.

"Suspended. For now. I'm not sure for how long. However long…it takes…I guess. And then after that, he can return to work. Just not here. I know I've granted him a lot but I don't think I can look at him again." Director Fury sat back in his chair, arms folded. "I know this probably isn't what you want to hear, but you did put me in charge of this" she argued.

Jenny actually saw the Director smile when she finished and to be honest, she didn't quite know where to look!

"I'm glad that those are your recommendations agent."

"You knew I would suggest this?" she frowned.

"Of course I did. I run a super secret spy organisation, what do you think we do for a living. We already knew about the Williams kid and I knew that you would figure something was up and try to find out what it was. I also know that you have a great deal of compassion so wouldn't ask that he disappear forever. You're free to go, agent. Oh, and you start back at work on Monday." He waved his hand at her. She knew better than the keep him waiting after being dismissed.

Monday came around far too quickly for Jenny's likeness. Within a few hours of her giving her recommendation to the Director, Williams was on a quinjet heading home, suspended (with reduced pay) for an unspecified length of time. She was looking at herself in the mirror 15 minutes before she was due to start back at work. Her eyes were no longer bloodshot and the handprints had lost their definition and turned a distinctive shade of green. Still noticeable but less off-putting. There was one problem though. It was Jenny's 23rd birthday in a week and she was due to take a few days off to spend time at the tower. But Tony didn't know about the incident and he was absolutely going to notice that her neck was bruised even if it had faded a little more.

Natasha noticed her worrying as they ate lunch together. Clint had been sent on a mission a few days earlier. After she had explained her situation to the master assassin, Tasha promptly excused herself from the table with the promise of returning. When she came back, she was holding a small black box. Inside was an array of makeup products, specifically designed to help hide and conceal colourful bruises. After lunch, Tasha took Jenny back to her room and showed her its wonderful effects. It would be a bit like a mission, Tasha explained to her. The makeup had to cover the entirety of her neck and upper chest in order to look convincing. It took a full half an hour to apply and then another half an hour to remove. Which she would need to do if she didn't want to stain all of Tony's sheets yellow.

This arrangement did make things rather difficult as she enjoyed her birthday at Stark Tower. She even had to resort to telling JARVIS to keep this information to himself. The AI reluctantly agreed that this would probably be for the best.

After her return to the hellicarrier, things generally settled down. Jenny was getting to grips with her new role and in the process was learning an awful lot about Clint and Tasha. Tasha had seemingly gone through hell to get to where she was today, starting out in the Red Room before being 'Recruited' by Clint. Speaking of Clint, it turned out that he was harbouring a family that she didn't know existed – a wife, 2 kids and a farm. Jenny knew that all of this information was strictly confidential and she was only getting to know because she needed to. She promised to never tell another living soul.

Before long, it was December 2009 and Jenny found herself sitting in the Directors office with her handler, her mentor and her 2 friends. All traces of the attack were now mere memories, the physical evidence having long faded away. 2 weeks earlier, she had been notified that Williams's suspension was going to end in 3 months time after the passing of his young son. Jenny comforted herself with the knowledge that the boy had his family around him when he died. But now, they were in the Directors office finishing off the paper work to make Jenny a fully qualified Agent of the Logistics Division with new Level 5 status. She had already told Tony the good news, but had yet to receive any reply to her text. As she was handed her new badge she tried to keep the niggling thought out of her head that something was wrong. For the past week his response times to her texts had gotten longer and longer. Something was wrong with Tony again, she just knew it.


End file.
